I’m a professional storyteller. I tell other people’s stories for a living. The good stories and the bad stories.
I’ve always believed journalism is a public service, a way to give back to the community. Yes, some will say journalists focus on the bad and not enough on the good. But everyone wants to know why cop cars were on their street last night. Everyone wants to know if there are drugs in their community, if someone they know was hurt in the accident they passed on the way to work, if police caught the prowler, the arsonist or the vandal.
Unfortunately, the things we want to know or need to know are often bad, often centered around public safety, and often just dismal.
Still, good news or bad news, my goal has always been to serve the public. From covering a state trooper’s funeral after a drunk driver killed him to interviewing mothers of murder victims to tackling poverty, unemployment and cyber bullying – no matter the subject, at the end of the day you hope your stories make a difference. You hope in some way you’ve served the greater good.
You hope.
Still, you never know if you really make an impact. You never know if reporting the growing number of heroin deaths or offering an in-depth look at cold missing persons cases makes any bit of difference.
You never know.
But in rare cases something happens to show you your news reports don’t just go out into the great big void that is the Internet and disintegrate. In rare cases you get an opportunity to see that a story has made an impact for the good.
In the spring, Susan Crater e-mailed my editor pitching a story about her 34-year-old husband Matt, who was in need of a live kidney donor. My editor and I discussed it. We were interested in the subject, a larger issue about organ donation, but Susan and her husband lived in Bellefonte, and being we are StateCollege.com we weren’t sure if we should proceed. We decided I’d give them a call and go from there.
Well, it turned out Matt is a Penn State graduate, so we had our local connection and I proceeded to hear his story. Matt was 25 when he went to the doctor complaining of foot pain. After many tests, he learned he had Chronic Kidney Disease. In 2013, the doctors told him it was time to try and find a live donor. The doctors suggested promoting Matt’s story.
That’s when Susan reached out to StateCollege.com. My report posted to our site May 5. It quickly became the most read story of the day. In all, 17,000 people would read the story and 1,200 would “like” the piece on Facebook.
About five months later, I received a message from Susan. “I wanted to let you know that Matt had his kidney transplant yesterday! The kidney is working, and he is doing well!”
Over the next couple of days I would learn that 30-year-old Jess Hawk of Bellefonte was the donor and she was inspired to do such a generous act because she read the article I’d written. Read the full story HERE.
I’m not here to take credit for anything. This was God at work. This was due to Susan’s effort and Jess’ kindness. I’m blessed to have played a small role in what turned out to be a truly amazing story with a happy ending.
Rarely, do news stories have happy endings. Rarely, do I know what, if any, impact my news reports have in the world. They disappear into the web and then it’s onto the next story. Rarely, is there a moment when you see the impact, when you know the impact. But it is a great moment when it happens.
And as I leave StateCollege.com for the next venture in my career, I can know that not all of my work disintegrated into the void that is the Internet. At least one piece made a difference. And that’s why I signed up for this business. That’s why I became a journalist.
I leave knowing I had a small role in something bigger, something good – and I’m grateful.
